September 20-2013
America’s famous Qoran-burning Christian pastor was arrested last Wednesday as he set out on the anniversary of 9/11 to burn 2,998 Qorans, one for each of those killed in the Twin Towers attack of 2001.
Pastor Terry Jones wasn’t arrested for burning Qorans, since that cannot be an offense under the First Amendment. Instead the police in Polk County, Florida, handcuffed and jailed him for the “unlawful conveyance of fuel”—for towing a barbecue grill stuffed with kerosene-soaked Qorans behind his pickup truck.
A public debate ensued over whether the charge would stick or would be thrown out as mere pretext by the authorities to stop Jones from exercising his First Amendment rights.
Three years ago, when Jones first burned Qorans, police in another Florida town where he lived at the time considered arresting him for violating Florida’s law against open burning, but decided they could never make that stick and abandoned the idea.
Last Wednesday, Jones was towing the grill to a park in Mulberry, Florida, according to follower Stephanie Sapp, whose husband, Marvin Wayne Sapp Jr., was also arrested.
Mrs. Sapp said Jones’s group, Stand Up America Now, had earlier announced plans on Facebook to torch the Qorans on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
Jones and Sapp were each charged with unlawful conveyance of fuel, a felony, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. Jones was also charged with a misdemeanor of openly carrying a firearm.
Police “informed them that it is illegal to have a grill with kerosene in it in any way behind a vehicle traveling down the highway,’’ Mrs. Sapp said.
She said that in burning the holy books, Jones sought to raise awareness of “the dangers of Islam.”
“We had the Qorans inside the grill and we had prepared them by soaking with kerosene, just like you would if you had charcoal on a grill and poured lighter fluid on it,” Mrs. Sapp said.
Jones heads his own evangelical Christian congregation in Gainesville that is not part of any larger church group.
After his release, Jones told US News magazine that police had lured him into a trap Wednesday to prevent him from exercising his First Amendment rights and also failed to read him his Miranda rights about remaining silent, as required by law.
He threatened to sue the Polk County Sheriff’s Office if the charges against him are dismissed or if he’s found not guilty.
Jones told US News he shared his plans to pre-soak the Qorans during a meeting with three police officers – two from Polk County and one from Manatee County – and an FBI special agent on September 7. None of the officers voiced concerns, he said.
“We told them at the time we would be soaking the Qorans in kerosene and would be driving them down there,” Jones said. “We had no idea that was against the law. They were aware of what we were going to do.”
Dave Couvertier, media coordinator of the FBI’s Tampa field office, confirmed the FBI was in contact with Jones. The FBI wanted “to let him know there were some safety concerns” based on “unsubstantiated threats,” Couvertier said. “We were not engaging in any arrest activity,” he said, and “we were not involved [in his arrest].” The fuel conveyance statute is a Florida law, not a federal statute, so the FBI has no role in enforcing it.
“Even the guy who ended up handcuffing us and arresting us was [at the September 7 meeting],” Jones said. “They knew what we were doing, what route we were taking. I’ve been a pastor all my life and maybe I’m a little naive, I thought they were going to help us.”
Jones said his claim that he wasn’t read his Miranda rights – which if true could scuttle the legal case against him – could be corroborated by videos taken of his arrest.
First Amendment experts told US News it would be unconstitutional for police to selectively enforce laws against Jones because of his political beliefs. University of California at Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh pointed to the 1985 US Supreme Court ruling in Wayte v. United States. The court ruled “the decision to prosecute may not be [based on]… the exercise of protected… constitutional rights.”
“I imagine that many people convey wood and combustible material to tailgate parties and picnics [without arrest],” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said. The reason Jones and Sapp were initially pulled over was for lacking registration and lights on the towed grill. The grill was rented by Sapp, Jones said, and is presumably driven by other locals without lights or registration and with flammable materials inside.
Jones admitted he is guilty of the misdemeanor charge for openly carrying a firearm, for which he says he has a concealed carry permit. “When I get in and out of the car I don’t like the gun rubbing against me, so when I get out of the car I sometimes tuck my shirt behind it,” he explained. “It was an oversight on my part [and] I am of course at fault.”
Jones said he plans to continue torching Islam’s holy book. “As long as [radical Muslims abroad] continue to violate human rights, burn churches and Christians and hang homosexuals, we are going to continue to burn Qorans,” he said.
Jones has ignored repeated appeals from senior US military officers who have told him the Qoran-burning is a provocative act that infuriates Muslims worldwide and endangers US troops in Muslim countries.
Jones previous episode of Qoran-burning resulted in numerous riots around the Islamic world that resulted in several deaths to participating Muslims, but no attacks on Americans.